For decades, the world’s leading human rights organizations have claimed a unique moral authority. Governments cite their reports, journalists rely on their findings and the public accepts their conclusions because these organizations insist that no institution should be beyond scrutiny.
Now that principle has come home. A newly released 63-page report by EiGHT, an Israeli watchdog organization established after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to examine the accountability of international humanitarian NGOs, alleges that several of the world’s leading human rights organizations systematically ignored or suppressed complaints of antisemitism within their own ranks. Led by Danielle Haas, who spent 14 years as a senior editor at Human Rights Watch, the report draws on interviews with more than 70 current and former employees of organizations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders and Greenpeace.
Readers need not accept the report’s conclusions uncritically. EiGHT is an advocacy organization, not an academic institution. But neither should its findings be dismissed simply because it is Israeli. Human rights organizations have long insisted that reports be judged by the quality of their evidence — not by the identity of those presenting it. The same standard should apply here.
Nor does the report stand alone. Last year, OLAM, a global network of Jewish professionals working throughout the humanitarian sector, found that a majority of Jewish employees had experienced or witnessed antisemitism in their workplaces. Different organizations. Different methodologies. Similar conclusions. And if even part of those allegations proves true, the implications extend well beyond the treatment of Jewish employees.
This is not about criticism of Israel. Human rights organizations should criticize Israel whenever the facts warrant it, just as they should criticize every other nation. The issue is whether Jewish and Israeli employees can question that work — or report antisemitism directed at themselves — without fear of professional retaliation or having their concerns dismissed as attempts to silence criticism of Israel.
An organization unwilling to tolerate honest disagreement about one of its most controversial areas of work inevitably raises questions about the integrity of that work itself. Public confidence depends not merely on reaching the right conclusions, but on demonstrating that competing evidence and viewpoints receive a fair hearing.
The report’s allegations may ultimately prove accurate, overstated, or somewhere in between. That is precisely why they deserve an independent examination rather than institutional denial or silence.
There is only one response consistent with the principles these organizations have championed for decades. Every organization identified in the report should voluntarily commission an independent review conducted by respected experts with no institutional ties to the organization. The investigators should interview current and former employees, examine the allegations, publish their findings and recommend reforms where warranted. The purpose is not to validate EiGHT’s conclusions. It is to determine whether they are true.
Human rights organizations have long argued — correctly — that institutions accused of systemic discrimination cannot credibly investigate themselves. The organizations named in this report now face the same test they have applied to governments, universities, corporations and police departments.
If they invite an independent review, they will reinforce the principles they have long championed. If they choose not to pursue one, they will invite the very question they have so often posed to others: Why should anyone accept an institution’s assurances when it declines the independent scrutiny it has always demanded of everyone else?
